Medicine Notes Psychiatry Notes
Clinically-relevant notes for medical finals. Includes all the common psychiatric conditions along with notes on dementia and child psychiatry. Colour coded per topic. Easy to follow and breaks down the main presenting features and treatments (both drugs, psychological therapies and ECT)
Very useful for finals revision....
The following is a more accessible plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our Psychiatry Notes. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:
Neurotic Disorders
Neurosis
‘Disorders that have three things in common’
Not accompanied by organic brain disease
Not psychoses
Discrete onset (rather than a continuous development from early life)
Anxiety + Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety
‘An unpleasant emotional state or condition, which is characterized by subjective feelings of tension, apprehension and worry by activation of the autonomic nervous system’
Perceived danger
Limbic system
Sympathetic nervous system activated
Release of noradrenalin and adrenaline (from adrenals)
Physiological effects
Anxiety is a normal human response to many every-day situations
Anxiety disorders = more intense, last longer and lead to problems that interfere with everyday life. They occur because people believe situations to be more dangerous than they actually are
Three components of Anxiety
Physical symptoms
Cardiovascular
Tachycardia
Chest pain
Palpatations
Respiratory
Tachpnoea
CNS
Syncope
Pre-syncope
Headache
Insomnia
Other
Urinary frequency
Diarrhoea
Tremor
Panic attacks
= Brief intense episodes of anxiety
Can occur in any of the anxiety disorders
Hyperventilation is common
Phobic Anxiety Disorders
Phobia = anxiety in response to a specific situation
Degree of anxiety is out of proportion to situation
3 Phases
Anticipatory anxiety
Physical and psychological symptoms of anxiety
Avoidance or escape
Agoraphobia
Women>Men
‘Anxiety about being in places or situations from which escape might be difficult or in which help might not be available in the event of having an unexpected or situationally predisposed panic attack or panic-like symptoms’
Anxiety about leaving the home, entering shops, using public transport etc
Gradual escalation of symptoms over time
Must NOT be the result of delusions/hallucinations
Social Phobia
Men>Women
Anxiety symptoms provoked by social situations in which the person feels ‘on display’ in some way e.g speaking to audience, eating in public
Impacts on job and lifestyle
Low self esteem
Fear of criticism
Specific Phobias
Anxiety aroused by a particular objects
Spiders, dogs, thunderstorms
Commonest Phobia
Least disabling provided the object can be avoided
Person recognizes emotional distress is excessive/unreasonable
Panic Disorder
Repeated panic attacks occurring over a short period of time
Not predictable or in response to a particular stimulus
No symptoms between attacks
Several panic attacks within a month
Need 4 of 14 symptoms
Palpatations
Sweating
Trembling
Hot flushes
Dyspnoea
Choking sensation
Chest pain
Generalised Anxiety Disorder
Women>Men
Symptoms of anxiety present most of the time for >6 months
No direct cause or obvious trigger
Often as severe at home as when out of the house
Tends to occur on the background of chronic social problems
Mental illness
Unemployment
Lack of support
Symptoms include
Apprehension
Motor tension (tension headache)
Autonomic over-activity
+/- Depressive symptoms
Can be a presenting feature of depressive illness
Differential diagnosis of anxiety disorders
Depression
Drug and alcohol withdrawal
Schizophrenia
Dementia
Thyroid disease
Management of Anxiety Disorders
Drug treatment
For severe and chronic anxiety mainly
Benzodiazepines
Problems of tolerance and dependence
Try to avoid if possible
If using, prescribe low dose and short duration
B Blockers
Symptomatic relief of palpatations
Antidepressants e.g SSRIs
Useful even in absence of depressive symptoms
Higher doses needed than in depression treatment
Increased anxiety initially, few weeks for full effects (6 weeks)
Buspirone (anti-psychotic)
Similar to benzodiazepine but no dependency problems
Pregabalin (anticonvulsant)
Psychological treatment
Explanation and reassurance re...
Buy the full version of these notes or essay plans and more in our Psychiatry Notes.
Clinically-relevant notes for medical finals. Includes all the common psychiatric conditions along with notes on dementia and child psychiatry. Colour coded per topic. Easy to follow and breaks down the main presenting features and treatments (both drugs, psychological therapies and ECT)
Very useful for finals revision....
Ask questions 🙋 Get answers 📔 It's simple 👁️👄👁️
Our AI is educated by the highest scoring students across all subjects and schools. Join hundreds of your peers today.
Get Started